Mid-morning Cinema: Bab al-Hadid (Cairo Station)

“This is Cairo Station, the heart of the city. Every minute a train departs and every minute another arrives. Thousands of people meet and bid farewell; people from all over, locals and foreigners, rich and poor, people with and without jobs.” (The narrator in Bab al-Hadid, 1958)

Qinawi, the unstable, often ridiculed newspaper seller craves the affections of the brassy, beautiful soda-seller, Hamouna, but Hamouna is engaged to station worker, Abu-Serih. Unfolding in the perpetually bustling Cairo station, the epicenter of the city, Cahine’s 1958 classic follows Qinawi as his desire evolves into a destructive obsession. Through the lens of a rapidly changing metropolis, Bab al-Hadid skillfully writes a striking narrative of shattered and demented dreams.